Today's Opinions

The swift and positive reaction by Shelby County Jailer Bobby Waits and the county’s magistrates to an opportunity for new business will provide an important infusion of cash into a county budget that is becoming difficult to balance.
Waits was quick to respond earlier this spring to a brief openinig to secure a $600,000 contract with Anderson County to house its inmates.

In communities across the nation, cemeteries are dying.
That’s what happens when the living fail to honor, preserve and restore their local cemeteries. It’s also the result when cemetery boards fail to keep the cemetery alive and vital by investing in surrounding property for the future and providing opportunities for the living to honor and preserve the resting place of the dead.
Grove Hill Cemetery in the center of Shelby County is alive and well.

On a sunny Friday afternoon, the damnations of work behind you and the blessings of a weekend settling large on your horizon, you find yourself winding down a road that is as familiar as the scars in your own skin, one whose hills, dales and dusty side trails you can see perfectly with your eyes shut and nothing but motion to plot its passage.
Each fencepost is a milestone of your journey, a dot on your mind’s map so large and bold that you can name generations of people – their nicknames, their offspring, their ancestors – who lived behind them.

It’s really a positive in a community when decision-makers listen to public input and respond appropriately.
That’s why it was refreshing to hear last week about the aggressive changes that the Shelby County A&M board had adopted for the upcoming Shelby County Fair.
Last year the fair had come under significant criticism because of its high prices for admission and ride bracelets and for its restrictive gate practices.
Those complaints were well-founded and – much more importantly – well-received.

The swift and positive reaction by Shelby County Jailer Bobby Waits and the county’s magistrates to an opportunity for new business will provide an important infusion of cash into a county budget that is becoming difficult to balance.
Waits was quick to respond earlier this spring to a brief openinig to secure a $600,000 contract with Anderson County to house its inmates.

To some, the words “family feud” will bring to mind the old game show by that name, with Richard Dawson kissing all the female contestants.

For the more literary astute, perhaps the Montagues and the Capulets from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (or the more recent movie, Gnomeo and Juliet) came to mind. Still other’s thoughts may have gone to your latest holiday get-together.

I am so very disheartened by the letter written by Linda Allewalt (“The Ten Commandments should come down,” April 20), and even more bothered that her voice was heard. To understand my reaction to reading this, one must take the view of 1) someone who isreligious and 2) someone who has a profound awareness of why separation of church and state is such a bad idea.